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Children of Men (4 of 4)
Children of Men beautifully intertwines the themes of anti-immigrant policy enforcement, global warming, human extinction, decaying Capitalism, and the human will to endure and overcome. In interviews shown in the Bonus Features, Saskia Sassen, sociologist of human migration says that “Migration has always been a natural state of the human experience. Today’s reality forces immigration because of socioeconomic inequalities of the world’s population, war, atrocities, environmental devastation, and the privatization of land. Part of the solution is to create economic conditions so that people don’t have to leave.”
Anti-Globalization Activist, Naomi Klein says that, “Global liberal democratic capitalism has to guarantee inequality. It is incompatible to the natural state of migration. Immigrants are no longer just crossing a border, but are made to feel that they are violating a nation state. Currently, there are more walls, both real and invisible being built, such as the border between the US and Mexico. Global warming under Capitalism is creating global green zones for the rich, completely privatized behind gated communities. Survival is only guaranteed to those who will be able to move to and afford these gated green zones. The wealthy will secure property in places like Alaska and Iceland where future temperatures will be tropical. Our hope lies in the utopian vision where the world exists without borders, and humans have rights wherever they are.”
Scientist and Futurologist, James Lovelock, says that “Reversing the impact that global warming has already made is impossible. The only possibility now is to slow it down. It will be so hot in the US and Britain, crops won’t be able to grow. There will be mass migrations of environmental refugees. Deaths due to floods and starvation will be of genocidal proportions, and experienced mostly by the poor who cannot make it out of these conditions.”
Slavoj Zizek concludes the interviews by connecting the themes of human renewal, freedom from Capitalist injustice, and spirituality, using the symbolism of immigrants, the boat, and the fertility of Kee. In Children of Men, there are three references to the free-floating nature of water. The name of the activist group fighting for a safe haven for refugees is the Fishes, the rowboat carrying Kee and her baby to safety, and the ship, Tomorrow, which harbors the Human Project. According to Zizek, “Migration presupposes the severing of physical roots. The acceptance of rootlessness is a leap into a free-floating state, or an act of faith. The rootlessness of immigrants in strange lands is like the free floating nature of the boat on water. This thrust into the unknown contains within it a process of renewal and transformation, for however one leaves this situation, he or she will have changed. Thus, as Kee and her baby are carried on the rowboat to safety, they symbolize hope for the renewal of the human condition and social transformation. The birth of Kee’s baby represents a spiritual fertility, or rebirth of humanity. Immigrants and refugees, because of the nature of their struggle, will play a major role in changing the meaningless and dying society (symbolized by infertility) that globalized Capitalism has produced.
